Afghanistan Peace CampaignThe Daily Hustle
Coming ‘home’ to Afghanistan
Like many Kuchi families, my parents moved to Pakistan about 40 years ago because the civil war that was raging in Afghanistan had made our nomadic way of life impossible. I was born and raised in Pakistan. I got married there. All of my six children were born in Pakistan. My oldest is 16 and the youngest is just two.
But now, Afghans are no longer welcome in Pakistan and the government there has been forcing Afghans to leave. So last year, my family joined the thousands of others making the journey back to a home we’d never really known. At least this way, we left on our own terms.
You can’t get by without a tazkira
When we first came to Afghanistan, I didn’t think about getting a tazkira. Most Kuchi women (and men) don’t have one. I never needed one in Pakistan. I’d heard people talking about getting a tazkira, but didn’t think I’d be needing one anytime soon. Anyway, there were more pressing things that my husband and I had to deal with. We had to get on with settling into our new life, finding our way around the system, and finding a school for the kids. Unfortunately, my older girls can’t go to school like they did in Pakistan and, anyway, there’s no school near our home, so my 10-year-old son and two of my daughters are going to a madrasa. But it soon became clear that, nowadays, you need a tazkira everywhere and for everything. For example, if you fall seriously ill and need to go abroad for treatment, or if you want to go on Hajj. You need a passport to do these things, and you can’t get one without a tazkira. Or, as it was in my case, if you need to prove that you’re an Afghan.
You’re not an Afghan without a Tazkira
One day, the office that helps people who’ve come back from Pakistan [the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR] called us and told us we needed to go to their office. They said we were eligible for some additional assistance because we were registered refugees in Pakistan who’d returned to Afghanistan through official channels. They’d already given us USD 375 per person when we first arrived in Afghanistan, and now they were going to give us another USD 700 as a family. But when I went for the appointment, they asked for my tazkira. I told them I didn’t have one. They said they couldn’t give me the money without one because I had to prove I was an Afghan. So they didn’t give me the money. They told me to come back after I got my tazkira.
This was a serious setback. We’d waited a long time – about eight months – for them to contact us. And while this might not seem like a lot of money to most people, for our family, it was a fortune. We’d been struggling to make ends meet since we came back, and this money would go a long way in helping us settle into life in Afghanistan.
Bureaucracy reigns supreme
We left the office with heavy hearts. I told my husband I needed to apply for a tazkira as soon as possible. He agreed and we went together to the census department in Kandahar the next morning. But when we gave them my application, they said I needed to bring an usuli relative [a first-line blood relative such as a father, brother, uncle, cousin, or nephew] to vouch for me. I don’t have any close relatives. My father died in Pakistan seven years ago and I have no brothers or sisters. They said I could bring two witnesses instead, but they had to have tazkiras. Finding two people with tazkiras who would vouch for me wasn’t easy. My husband and I had lived our entire lives in Pakistan and didn’t know very many people in Afghanistan. Most of the people we know are other Kuchis who are also returnees from Pakistan and in the same predicament we’re in.
My husband asked several people he’d met recently, but they all refused. He said he didn’t blame them. People are afraid to vouch for someone they don’t know well. What if that person turns out to be a criminal, a drug trafficker or a member of Daesh [ISKP, Islamic State in Khorasan Province]? It could land them in hot water.
Finding witnesses
Finally, my husband found someone he knew who worked in a government department. He agreed to be one of our witnesses and gave my husband a copy of his tazkira. The other witness lived in Balkh province and sent us a copy of his tazkira through a mutual acquaintance who was coming to Kandahar.
But when we took the tazkiras to the census department, they told us that our witnesses had to come in person. Fortunately, one of them lived in Kandahar and said that he’d come whenever the second witness came to town. My husband called the other witness and asked if he could come down to Kandahar, but he said that he was very poor and couldn’t afford the fare. We offered to pay him double the travel cost. Thankfully, he agreed. He was a kind man who helped us a lot; we’ll always be grateful to him.
Finally, I was able to get my electronic tazkira. I was now officially an Afghan.
It’s not who you are, it’s who you know
I’m not the only one who’s had trouble getting a tazkira; many Kuchi women face similar problems. Fortunately, my husband has a primary school education and managed to get his own tazkira about ten years ago, so he understood the process. He’s also very sociable and has a knack for making friends easily. In the end, it was his ability to connect with people that stood us in good stead. It allowed him to tap into the largess of his new friends and contacts and find two people who’d vouch for me.
I often think about the hoops we jumped through to prove I was Afghan and secure my tazkira. I realise now that proving you belong in your own country can be nearly impossible if you don’t have any connections. The Kuchis in Afghanistan have a proverb: “Khowar pa Hindostan ham khowar dai,” which means “The poor are poor even in India.” In other words, a person without means is without means wherever they go.